The NIHR Statistics Group held their first Annual Event, entitled “Challenges and Opportunities for applied statisticians at the University of Sheffield on the 22-23rd June.
Invited speakers included Professor Deborah Ashby (Director of the Clinical Trials Unit, Imperial College London), Dr James Wason (MRC Biostatistics Unit) Mike Bradburn (University of Sheffield Clinical Trials Research Unit) and Professor Andy Vail (Director of the Centre for Biostatistics, University of Manchester).
As well as presentations, one of the main aims of the meeting was to involve new members in the formation of the Group’s future activities and priorities. There were discussion groups on various topics aiming to identify key practical and methodological challenges that NIHR statisticians face and discuss strategies to address them. Many of these issues had been raised by Senior NIHR Faculty who attended the NIHR Statistics Group Showcase event on HMS Belfast in November 2016.

Each of the four NIHR Statistics Group Research Sections gave presentations. These described how the research sections were established by individual members of the Group in response to issues that NIHR statisticians face in their day-to-day work. The Research Sections have each taken different approaches to their particular issues and their presentations focussed on the decision-making process and the results of their work so far. The intention is that these groups might provide exemplars of how issues raised in the conference discussion groups might be taken forward. A summary of the conference discussion groups can be found on the next page.